With technological advances, it is becoming increasingly possible to have autonomously driven automotive vehicles. Autonomously driven vehicles would provide a driver the option of yielding control over the movement of the vehicle to an electronic control system that uses information regarding the environment surrounding the vehicle to autonomously drive the vehicle. Depending on the vehicle, different levels of automation may be possible.
While automated control over a vehicle may present increased convenience to a driver it presents new challenges and difficulties to vehicle and control component manufacturers. A fully automated vehicle that is self-driving or self-governing may encounter situations that require controlling the vehicle based on a moral or ethical decision. For example, while autonomous vehicle control may be designed to avoid collisions it is possible for a vehicle to be traveling and encounter a situation in which it becomes impossible to avoid a collision with one of several possible obstacles. There may eventually be standards developed for how such vehicles will behave in at least some such situations but as of today there are no guidelines or regulations in place. Vehicle and control component manufacturers, therefore, need to determine how to configure an autonomous vehicle response to such situations.